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Red_Fir

Member

Registered: 2023-10-01

Posts: 8  

[SOLVED] Homeless

So I tried to install Beowulf ....no joy it would not write to the efi partition,
Tried to install Daedalus .... no joy it would not write to efi partition
During both installs it  probed and found my sda1 (1 GB, efi) partition and gave an error 127 on grub install
Noodling around in the live CD I fired up GParted and it listed my sda disk (ssd) as a different disk (actual sdc, (sdb is a ssd windows  disk))
sdc is a regular HDD with /home and /swap on it... it also has an efi partition (so does the windisk for what its worth!)  but I consistently pointed the installer to sda1, and it didn't, write to the wrong efi partition either.
(sda is dedicated to testing systemd free distros, sda2 is void Linux, sda3 is PCLOS, and sda4 Devuan

In desperation I unplugged the sdb, and sdc disks from the SATA controller and reinstalled aaand, ... no joy it would not write to the efi partition!
But, when booting into sda3 (PCLOS) and running grub_update it found the Devuan (sda4) and included it in the grub list, FINALLY getting me to a Devuan install.

It still does not register with the UEFI Bios, .. but is in Grub

Now how do I link to, and ensure the old /home on sdc4 is used as /home.
And how do I lose the swapfile, and ensure the old swap partition on sdc2 is active on boot?

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,178  

Re: [SOLVED] Homeless

What a rant without telling anything about the PC hardware involved ... Ok, some comments anyway ...

Why Beowulf today? Is that a very old PC that does not work any more with latest versions? If you try to install in efi mode, it must be something relatively recent, so Daedalus should be fine.

efi-Mode and not writing to the efi partititon: any Debian/Devuan installer needs to be booted in efi mode if you want an efi installation. Make sure when the boot stick is selected that you use the one that is marked "efi"! If not the installer will try to write a legacy grub. This may explain this error 127.

Installations from live media often suffer from various problems. My advise: Use a regular installer. As an experienced user I do prefer the netinstalls, and I only use expert mode and manual partitioning.

To make sure only one efi partition is used, either remove all other devices from the PC, or use manual partitioning to select the efi partition to be used if more than one exists on the PC. Do not format it!

BTW: there is no fixed device detection order. Normal boot and installers can change detection order by chance depending on kernels used, timing, chance ... Always have a very close look before letting go.

Also the swap partition can be set during manual partitioning, but AFAIK the installer always will try to reformat the device. You will need to set the correct UUID in the affected fstabs manually.

Theoretically you can attach an existing /home during installation also by manual partitioning. But this is prone to errors, you have to make sure that you do not reformat the device. My personal advice is to attach it by modifying the fstab after you booted the install successfully, this would be my way.

Red_Fir

Member

Registered: 2023-10-01

Posts: 8  

Re: [SOLVED] Homeless

A thousand pardons!
Dell 9020 Tower, bone stock with the exception of 32 GB memory (and of course the multiple drives)
Booting into efi is the only option currently enabled in BIOS and all hard drives are formatted to GPT specs,
no boot sticks, started from live CD in both cases, in every case but the current solution I did a manual partition, (since the other affected disks were unplugged to achieve this there was no sense in a manual partition.
(Is there a reason BTRFS is not an option with Devuan?)
in this case I simply selected an ext4 partition for / (all other options being unplugged at the time!)

Anyway...thanks for reiterating my question as a statement of what I should do, in your final line ... how do I ensure that's the only /home in use and not the current file existent with this install?

Camtaf

Member

Registered: 2019-11-19

Posts: 439  

Re: [SOLVED] Homeless

Use the UUID, or partUUID, don't rely on /dev/sd? for consistent disks/partitions.

rolfie

Member

Registered: 2017-11-25

Posts: 1,178  

Re: [SOLVED] Homeless

Ok, the PC is an efi only system.

To the live media: I have no idea about the refracta installer used on the live media. As experienced user I only use expert install with netinstall media with the oldfashioned command line installer. What I got from the forum here is that the refracta installer is limited in its options and sometimes causes issues.

To btrfs: I don't use this file system, no idea if it is present on netinstalls.

To the /home directory: the installer adds the /home path below / when you do not specify a separate partition for /home. You can select your desired partition for /home by adding a line to the fstab like this (you may need to adapt one or the other thing):

# Home
UUID=xxxx	/home	ext4	defaults	0	1

This line maps your existing /home over the newly generated /home on the root file system.

Prerequisite is that the user name and group are identical.

Then you reboot and you should see that the space of the /home-partition now is different.

Last edited by rolfie (2023-10-02 12:29:11)

Red_Fir

Member

Registered: 2023-10-01

Posts: 8  

Re: [SOLVED] Homeless

That worked wonderfully!
While I was there I added the swap, now can I just delete the swapfile?

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,494  

Re: [SOLVED] Homeless

If you removed or commented the line for the swapfile in /etc/fstab and you rebooted, then you can just delete the swapfile.
If it's still in use, you need to run swapoff /swapfile && rm /swapfile (as root)

You can see how much swap space you have with free -m  If both swap and swapfile are active, it'll show the total size of both.